Popular UK attraction announces huge redesign – its biggest in 200 years

A TOP UK tourist attraction is set to undergo a huge multi-million-pound revamp – its biggest for more than 200 years.

One of the country’s biggest assets is its extensive number of free museums that are visited by millions of people every year.

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And one of the most popular among them, the British Museum, is going to be given a face lift to make it even more attractive for London tourists.

The Grade-I listed building’s “Western Range” will be the subject of the renovation, which has been dubbed “the museum’s biggest building project since the 1820s” by the Architects Journal.

The western area currently houses the museum’s collections of Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman artefacts.

Included in those are the Rosetta Stone, the inner coffin of Hornedjitef and the Parthenon Marbles, also referred to as the Elgin Marbles.

As part of the development, the museum will get new innovative gallery displays as well as the “introduction of contemporary architecture“.

The journal added that the development would be done “alongside sensitivity towards the need to respect and restore the highly significant and celebrated listed buildings on the site”.

The process of finding someone to conduct the renovation project is now underway, with a competition taking place to select the right person to complete the rebuild.

Architects from around the world have been invited to compete
in a two-stage process, which the museum claims will “test their creativity, skill and vision”.

Applicants will be judged by a panel that will be comprised of ten members, chaired by George Osborne.

He will be joined by leading experts in this field including Yvonne Farrell, Meneesha Kellay, Mahrukh Tarapor, and Sarah Younger.

Mark Jones and Nicholas Cullinan will also sit on the panel alongside representatives from the British Museum’s Board of Trustees: Artist Tracey Emin, Charlie Mayfield and Alejandro Santo Domingo.

The competing teams have been asked to put forward a proposal which is “both a contemporary vision for how to present the collection for a modern day visitor experience, but remains sympathetic to the original Smirke building”.

They will also need to consider how the design can accommodate the Museum’s ambition to remain open to visitors for the period of building works.

While designs will be submitted to the panel, the purpose of the competition is not to find a final winning design.

Instead, the judging panel is looking for “an experienced and inspirational architect-led team” to work with the museum to create a final design in the future.

A full public display of the proposals by the final teams will take place this winter.

In terms of costs, one of the museum’s corporate sponsors, BP, will be donating £50million to the project.

However, the museum has told Sun Travel that the eventual cost of the “generational revamp” will be “much higher”.

The museum’s chair, former chancellor of the exchequer, Osborne, said: “The British Museum is one of London’s great and most-visited landmarks and, like the city itself, it feels timeless as a space because it constantly evolves.

“Each generation makes its own contribution: 200 years ago, our forebears commissioned the great Classical façade; 100 years ago it was the King Edward VI building; a quarter of a century ago, it was the [Foster + Partners-designed] Great Court.

“Now our generation is calling out across the world, and across Britain, for an architectural practice with the imagination, the sympathy and the vision to help us rebuild and restore the most famous galleries of the museum where our sculptures from Ancient Greece, Rome and Mesopotamia are displayed.

“In this home to the history of humanity, come help us – quite literally – build the future.”

The museum’s competition is open for entries until June 21.

Meanwhile, this UK town is home to one of the world’s best car museums.

And this world class UK museum reopened earlier this year.

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